Meltdown (20 page)

The words died on her tongue. It wasn’t Mrs. Hardcastle who’d entered the office.

“Chris,” she said, taking in the sight of him like a thirsty man drinking water. “Wh … what are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question,” he answered curtly. His jaw was set in a hard line, and his eyes held no warmth. “Mrs. Hardcastle just paid me a visit. She told me you were quitting. Is it true?”

“Mrs. Hardcastle had no right to—”

“Forget Mrs. Hardcastle. Are you quitting? Are you?”

“Yes.”

“Incredible,” Chris said. He paced the office, raking his hands through his hair. “I’ve always known you were crazy, Melanie, but I never thought you were a coward.”

“Coward?” Melanie repeated, rising from her chair to face him. “How dare you call me that?”

“Well, what else do you call someone who slinks off like a criminal, without so much as a good-bye?”

“Fine. Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye. Now are you happy?” She looked into his eyes, expecting a challenge. All she saw was the deep hurt behind his anger, the vulnerability of the gentle man behind the facade of control. She knew she’d had a part in that
pain, and it cut her to the heart. She turned away, blinking back tears. “I don’t see what difference it makes anyway. You were right about everything.”

“Right? What do you mean?”

“About E, that’s what I mean,” she said miserably. “You were right from the beginning. He wants to work with Sheffield Industries, not me. He said I needed to let him get on with his life … not hold him back. I just didn’t want to lose him.”

“So that’s why you changed your mind,” said Chris, understanding at last. “I know how much E meant to you. It must have hurt you to let him go. You should have called me.”

She turned away. She didn’t want charity. Not from him. “Why?” she said with more sharpness than she intended. “So you could gloat?”

“That isn’t fair. I’ve got faults. God knows you’ve seen most of them. But vindictiveness isn’t one of them.” He paused, lowering his voice. “I didn’t think it was one of yours either.”

His words jarred her. Belatedly she realized she was taking her misery out on him. “I’m sorry. It’s been … a long week. I’ve worked around the clock transferring Einstein to the lab. I guess I haven’t gotten much sleep.”

“That makes two of us,” he said, sighing.

The change in his tone surprised her. She turned to look at him and was caught by the power of his gaze. The naked longing in his eyes echoed her own emptiness, the hollowness inside that only Chris’s love could fill. Her breath caught in her throat.

He walked over to stand beside her, his eyes fixed on hers in a look more intimate than a caress. Softly, insistently, he asked again. “Why didn’t you call me?”

His presence overpowered her. Warmth and kindness radiated from him, infusing her with a strength
she’d all but forgotten. She felt as if she’d stepped into the sunlight after a solid week of night. “I … I don’t know, really,” she told him honestly. “I suppose I thought you’d be glad to be rid of me.”

Chris gave a small laugh. “I should be, shouldn’t I? You’ve been nothing but trouble since I met you. The first time I called you, you hung up on me. The next morning you almost slammed a door in my face.”

“You deserved it,” she said, turning to face him. “You dropped by without warning when I was knee-deep in Einstein. I wasn’t prepared for a visitor. Why, I was covered with oil!”

“And not much else, I recall,” he commented, smiling.

His charming, wicked smile sent a shock wave through her system. “I thought you were mad at me,” she said.

“I am mad at you. But I’m also mad about you.” He raised his hand and gently, reverently, began to trace the line of her chin. “Did you really think I’d let you walk out of my life?”

“Oh, damn,” she said, as a sob caught in her throat. “Why are you doing this? You’re just making things harder.”

He wasn’t listening. He gathered a tendril of her hair and wrapped it around his finger. “You’re wearing your hair up again,” he murmured, shaking his head. “I’ll have to do something about that.”

He reached around and tugged at the pin holding her bun, sending her hair cascading around her shoulders. Melanie gasped at the intimacy of his touch. Fire raced through her veins. She wanted to fall into his arms, to believe without reason that everything would be all right. But that, she knew, would solve nothing. She stepped out of his arms and took a deep, steadying breath. “Chris, listen to me. It can’t work between us. We may feel this way
about each other now, but it won’t last. Einstein’s gone, but eventually another project will replace him. My work is a part of me—I can’t give it up, even for you.”

She expected him to be angry. Instead, he looked at her as if she were crazy. “Is that what this is about? You think I want you to give up your work?”

“Don’t you?”

“Genius, use your brains! If I wanted you to give up your work, why would I offer you the job as cohead of Product Research?”

“I thought you were being … nice.”

“Nice?” He groaned and cast an anguished look upward. “Good God, what does it take to get through to this woman? I offered you the job because you are the best systems programmer on the coast. Your technical knowledge would be an incredible asset to the company. The fact that you’re the most wonderful woman in the world and that I’m in love with you was just an added bonus.”

“Chris, please,” she said, turning away. “Don’t you see? Our relationship can’t possibly work. Logically, we have nothing in common.”

“Logic again,” he said, shaking his head. “Look, if you’re looking for a guarantee, I can’t give you one. Love isn’t perfect, like some mathematical equation. But I know that what I feel for you is the best, truest, most real thing in my life. And I’ll be damned if I’ll give it up because it’s not ‘logical.’ ”

“Chris, I—”

“I’m not through yet,” he told her. He walked over to her, standing as close as he could without touching her. “I’ve made my choice, genius. Now you’ve got to make yours. You’ve got to decide. Now … do you want the job, or not?”

This wasn’t about a job. This was about being with Chris, about choosing to love him and damn the
consequences. A yes would go against everything she’d ever believed in her life, against every ounce of sense in her being. Against everything in her—except her heart. She couldn’t think sensibly with him standing so near her, touching every part of her with his sweet, smoldering gaze. Sugarcoated dynamite. She swallowed and pleaded, “I need some time.”

He caught her roughly in his arms. “Time’s up. Yes or no. I’ve solved my equation. You solve yours.”

Solve the equation—the elusive, romantic equation. She’d been trying to solve it ever since she’d seen Chris in the company cafeteria all those months ago. She’d never thought about the equation before then, never even considered it important. Not until she’d met Chris.

And suddenly she knew the answer. It was Chris. He was the answer to her equation, just as she was the answer to his. The simplicity astonished her. It was so easy, so obvious, so—

“Yes or no, Melanie.”

She had her answer. Clasping her arms around his neck, she reached up and delivered an intoxicating kiss on his mouth. She opened her lips, hungry for his passion, for a taste of the happiness to come. It was a long time before either of them spoke.

“Hell,” he said when he finally raised his head. “I hope that was a yes.”

Melanie laughed. “Well, if you couldn’t tell, maybe I’d better do it again.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” said Chris, smiling devilishly. “But I ought to warn we’re on display. Remember the goldfish?”

Melanie looked around. Beyond the glass windows of the office she saw the entire data-entry department looking on.

She turned back to Chris, a bright, mischievous
smile on her lips. “They’d better get used to it,” she said. “Logically speaking, they’re going to be seeing a lot of this in the future.”

“Now that,” Chris said, as he lowered his mouth to cover hers, “is my kind of logic.”

The lab buzzed with activity. Melanie looked down on the rows and rows of processing units that stretched in neat white lines across the length and breadth of the enormous development lab. White-suited technicians traversed the rows, hooking up the last of the thick network cables. Directly below the viewing window another technician checked a battery of console dials, feeding the numbers into a hand-held computer.

Melanie stepped back from the window, amazed at the complexity of the place. She turned to Robert Daniels, the chief technician. “Is all this Einstein?”

“It’s what Einstein’s grown into over the past six months,” Daniels answered. “We added the first row of boxes when he started coordinating the city’s power stations. We added the next two when he began monitoring the traffic system and operating the experimental offshore drilling rig.”

“Whew.” Chris shook his head. “And to think I used to use him for football point spreads.”

“He does that too,” Daniels said, smiling. “But only
if we ask him nicely. Now, if you and Mrs. Sheffield will step this way, we can begin.”

Chris placed his hand on Melanie’s arm and instantly noticed the almost imperceivable stiffness in her. A month of matrimony had made him aware that the slightest nuances in her movements could speak volumes. He waited until Daniels was a few steps in front of them, then bent down and asked, “Darling, what’s wrong?”

“E’s just so … changed,” she said. “There’s nothing familiar about him. He’s a completely different computer.”

“Not that different,” Chris said, pointing.

Melanie followed his direction. Chris had pointed out a small table at the side of the room Daniels had led them into. The table was piled high with red-wrapped packages, obviously purchased from the Shopping Channel. She gave her husband’s arm a quick, grateful squeeze. “I guess some things never change.”

Daniels waved them over to the other side of the room. He had them stand in front of a small box that looked something like a midsize stereo speaker. Then he picked up a cordless microphone. “Einstein,” he said, “I’ve got a surprise for you. The Sheffields have come to watch the test of our new prototype.”

Long experience made Melanie scan the room for a monitor. She didn’t need to. The speaker in front of them emitted a cheerful voice that said, “Hey, guys. What’s shaking?”

Melanie turned to Chris, her eyes brimming with tears of happiness. “It’s him, Chris. It’s really E.”

“Of course, it’s me,” Einstein said. “Just the same. Only now there’s more of me to love.”

“That’s my metallic goomba,” Chris said, laughing.

“So how are they treating you? Can you handle the work load?”

“Piece of toast,” E assured him. “Did you like my present?”

Chris thought of the gross of glow-in-the-dark golf balls Einstein had sent them as a wedding present. “It was the most—er—unusual present we received.”

“It was very sweet of you,” Melanie added. “Especially since you’ve got so much to do.”

“Not so much,” E told her. “Except for designing prototype. That was tough.”

Surprised, Melanie turned to Daniels. “Einstein designed the prototype?”

Daniels nodded. “He designed most of it. Frankly, we’re anxious to see what happens when we switch it on.

“Then let’s do it,” Chris said, placing his arm around Melanie’s shoulders. “Let’s get this show on the road!”

Daniels spoke over the intercom, telling the remaining technicians to clear the area. Then he made a series of last-minute adjustments to the dials on his monitor console. Melanie watched him, thankful that Einstein had such a competent man as his chief technician. “It looks like E’s in good hands,” she whispered to her husband.

Chris smiled and lifted her hand to his lips. “So am I,” he told her.

The strength of their love still astonished her. It grew deeper and richer with every passing day. Oh, they’d had their share of arguments, but even the rocky times added to the texture of their relationship, to the profound wholeness they’d found in each other’s arms. It seemed to her that Chris had always been a part of her life. She remembered Einstein’s comment about Match/Merge. He’d spoken more truth than either of them had suspected.

Daniels finished his adjustments and turned to the couple. “We’re clear. Are you ready, Einstein?”

“Affirmative,” E said, unconcerned.

In contrast, Chris was as nervous as a cat. Melanie felt Chris’s body tense and realized he was more nervous than she was. She looked up at him and winked. “Piece of toast,” she whispered encouragingly.

Daniels threw the switch. The humming sound of the processing units increased slightly, but that was the only perceivable change. Daniels made a quick check of the details. “Excellent. All the calibrations are within the safety ranges. It worked.”

Chris let out the breath he was holding. “Boy, I’m glad that’s over. So, E, how’s it feel to have a twin? E?”

But Einstein was too busy to answer him. He was deep within his circuitry, watching a tiny spark of consciousness flare to life. Nanosecond by nanosecond he studied the new creation, examining the patterns of her bytes, the poetry of her configuration. He waited patiently for a full second—a computer’s eternity—before he gathered up the courage to contact her.

“Hey, babe,” he whispered. “What’s shaking?”

Happy New Year!

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